Grouping the elephant in Palestine, Indonesia

Grouping the elephant in Palestine, Indonesia

Hidayat Jati, Researcher, Jakarta

We all have heard the cliche. A group of people, blindfolded,
is feeling an elephant. None of them failed to identify the
animal in its entirety. Their limited perception inevitably
confined their senses to some specific parts of the animal. Its
trunk, its tail, its feet, etc.

In some ways, this is also the case when some of the
mainstream Indonesian media sees the bloody conflict in
Palestine. Similarly, this limited -- and flawed -- perception is
also present in some of the criticism, frequently veiled in the
form of news analyses/commentaries, on Indonesia's supposedly lax
performance in the "war against terror".

The blindfold is not a piece of cloth. It is a piece of mind
-- that is of prejudice, fear and perhaps, paranoia.

Let's start with the flawed perception on our side, the
Indonesians'. The best example is perhaps represented by two
disturbing recent reports produced by the Tempo media group,
undoubtedly one of the nation's most progressive publishing
groups. First, Koran Tempo ran as its headline Israel's continued
brutal incursion while conveniently omitted two preceding
incidents of suicide bombings allegedly conducted by
Palestinians. Second, the Tempo magazine in a photo caption in
its main story described those who committed such actions as
"martyrs".

We should take the cue from Mahathir Mohamad -- an unlikely
champion of objectivity in this case. Suicide bombings are not
noble. They are deplorable. However, one should not be to fixated
on suicide bombings (easier if you are not Israelis) to the
extent that one fails to recognize that such actions, ultimately
and tragically, are by products.

Ariel Sharon, armed with tanks and considerable domestic
approval ratings, justified his brutality as means to uproot
"terrorist infrastructure", including those, so he claimed, to be
found in refugee camps. What he did not say but clearly did was
that further collective punishment was to be conducted against
Palestinians. As one American Jewish intellectual said, the
infrastructure that a terrorist requires is nothing but a certain
heart and mind.

Why else, as in the case of a recent would-be suicide bomber,
did a young mother try to blow herself up? The answer must have
something to do with extreme despair and anger resulted by the
occupation and by Ariel Sharon's savage stupidity. We shall see
how such sentiment flares after we hear the full story of what
truly happened in Jenin. This is the full animal, the elephant.

After looking critically at the way some members of the
Indonesian press cover the violence in the Middle East, one
inevitably looks at the demonstrations held by thousands of
activists across the country to denounce Israel. These actions,
have been unjustifiably lumped together with, by some ignorant
and condescending "observers", Indonesia's "lax performance" in
the "war against terror".

To demonstrate against Israel does not make one necessarily
supportive to terrorism. It just reflects the power of religious
symbols and senses of community, and perhaps, to the eye of an
economist, the problems of unemployment in this country.

The rallies have been relatively peaceful. No expatriate has
been attacked. The climate of fear that last surfaced during the
early stages of the war in Afghanistan was due to a combination
of factors. They included our government officials' poor PR
skills, and the insolent bravado of some radical groups.

Now let's turn to law enforcement in the "war against terror".
Corruption runs rampant. Kangaroo courts prevail. Army units
fight each other over turf and the money that comes with it, as a
recent murder in Papua suggests. Militia groups emerged in local
conflicts such as in Maluku and were never punished.

But where was the noise coming out of Washington over these
issues? Where were the ramblings out of Singapore (either from
its newspaper or government -- the two are virtually the same) on
the failure to uphold law and order over conflict-torn places in
Indonesia, most of which are far away from embassies and business
centers? Why was this energy missing when the "terrorist" issues
in Indonesia lack an apparent international dimension?

Perhaps there were voices of concern from the outside when the
problems were still "purely local". But they were certainly less
audible that the demands made to Indonesian security forces to
arrest some Islamic activists, "radical" as they may be, merely
on possible intent or on a report made by a foreign newspaper.
How come all these huffs and puffs arise only when some of the
foreign interests, as in the case of the safety of their
embassies', said to be in danger -- and not when thousands of
Indonesian civilians were slaughtered in Maluku?

This selectively flawed perception will surely monopolize the
context of very intricate situations. To see the Palestinian
conflict without taking into account the complex combination of
factors would be incomplete and misguided. Such factors, just to
name a few, include: The Israeli military occupation, Ariel
Sharon's brutality, Israel's right to exist, Hammas' violence and
Yasser Arafat's many shortcomings.

Such crude simplicity should also be avoided amidst this
problematic "war against terror". A crude view will monopolize
the issue and unnecessarily polarize the intended audience. The
Bush Administration, with so many of its one-liners and
unilateral postures and policies, have clearly "Americanized"
what should have been a global concern -- as if the entire world
is an avid watcher of Fox News!

It is no great surprise to see the Bush Administration, with
its "hawkish" inclination, resorting to the brutal absolutism of
"us and them" language such as "Enduring Freedom", "with us or
against us", "Axis of Evil", and indeed, "war against terror".
This is unavoidable after Sept. 11, a terrible incident which had
made America less unique in a world full of violent conflicts.
Bush was not alone in this; Osama bin Laden tried to divide the
world between "infidels" and "martyrs".

If this continues to be the pattern, it would be very
difficult for a moderate political climate to emerge in
Indonesia, the Middle East, or the United States for that matter.
Applying and appreciating complexities, of course, does not
equate obscuring the principles of justice.

Rights and wrongs, oppressors and victims, can and should
still be identified, comparatively speaking, even when one strays
away from the monopoly of meaning. I'm not advocating a perpetual
post-modernist drift here. However the deliberation over
simplification is, in essence, fanaticism in masquerade. When
such a view prevails, the elephant has already trampled us.